Paytm Says Bank Account Flush With (Five Years’ Worth Of) Cash

Apparently, Paytm feels pretty good about its five-year plan.

Or, at least, the owner of the India-based online payments processor, One97 Communications (which itself is owned by Alibaba), does, having recently told Bloomberg that it currently controls enough funds to last five years, a timeframe the company attests is suitable for building a “predictable” business model.

“We have enough money in the bank to last 21 quarters if we keep spending at the same rate as last year,” Vijay Shekhar Sharma, chief executive officer of One97, told Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong. “The last term sheet I signed was in 2014. We haven’t raised money since.”

If anything, observes Bloomberg, that five years’ worth of cash puts One97 (and, therefore, Paytm, which the outlet describes as its parent company’s public face) in a better position than some other eCommerce companies in India, noting, for example, that Flipkart — the largest online commerce company in the country — recently had its valuation slashed (by 23 percent). Mumbai-based food delivery app TinyOwl, meanwhile, is just about out of money, and Gurgaon-based Zomato recently saw its billion-dollar valuation cut in half.